


Everything Changes

by orphan_account



Category: Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:59:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they fight about a baby, everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Changes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greens/gifts).



> This isn't *quite* what you asked for, with Henry changing history, but he does change an important act, which leads to a huge change in everything. I really want to continue this AU, see what else changes ;)

"I think we should have another baby." The question was casual, yet it broke the silence with a crack. Several years and two dead babies later and Henry wasn't ready to give up. Trying not to look too eager, he glanced over at his wife. Even after all the hardship, he still found her soft curls brilliant, the curves of her body sexy, and the pale blueness of her eyes invigorating. Right now, however, those pale blue eyes had hardened into a sense of loss Henry could do nothing to understand.

"I don't. I don't want another baby. I don't want another failure. I don't want that in my life," Clare said softly, turning back to the shelves of books that lined the wall of the living room. "And drop it, I don't want another argument, either."

In three years she'd been through too many miscarriages. Too many short moments of the little baby jumping away into nothing. Too many long moments of tearing the nursery apart again, and too many long moments of her heart shattering and the pieces never fitting back the way they had been.

She had allowed Henry to talk her into having another baby after they had lost the first one and she'd agreed. She had allowed Henry to paint the nursery again, buy gifts, sing to the little one every night. She had allowed Henry to build up his hopes of creating something wonderful and beautiful and she was not about to do it again. This was already too much. One dead baby should have been enough, should have been the clue that this life was not for them, that there was a thing such as adoption, but Henry would hear none of it. Henry wanted to _create_ something, to hold a baby only minutes old and know what unconditional love was.

Henry wanted a fool's dream and Clare was not going to let him chase it anymore.

"I can't drop it," Henry whispered, close to tears. "I can't drop it and I can't let it lie, and I can't … I just can't, Clare. I think we should at least consider it. We don't have to now, we don't have to do it now, but we should. Again. We were meant to have children, Clare."

"Don't you know what it does to me?" Clare snapped. "You're so damn lucky Henry that you can never feel what I do when I lose the baby again. You're so fucking lucky that you get to sit there and just _want_ something, and go jump off when things get too emotionally needy for you. Goddammit, Henry, I _can't_ leave."

Henry began softly, standing up and reaching out to her, the movement reminding him of the first them they had thought they were pregnant.

Clare had missed her period two months in a row. She had made Henry go to the Walgreen's and buy a home pregnancy test; they waited four days to take it. When it had come back positive, Henry had called his mother, ecstatic.

The doctor told them sometimes the tests came back positive.

Startling out of the memory, he gently touched his wife's shoulder; when she recoiled, he chased, wrapping his arms around her tightly. "I wish I could stay," he said softly. "I wish I could. I would do anything to do it, you know that. I would do anything."

It was his fault they hadn't been able to have children. His fault because he jumped, and so his child jumped. His fault because he was supposed to be able to do this, he was supposed to be able to make a baby. Too many dead babies. Too many dead babies that had taken every amount of prayer that Henry could offer to create. Two prayers answered and two prayers dashed, left to fall to the flames like all the thousands of others had. They had died and it was Henry's fault that it took so much effort to even make them. Henry's fault they could never make one.

They had tried to create their own something in the city that was beautiful. All they'd come up with were dead babies. Dead babies that would forever be her fault. Too many times now, her body hadn't kept the baby still, in one timeline. She hadn't been able to stop it, see it, or feel it. It was her fault, her and her body's and she was not going to do it again. She was not going to kill another baby, not to satisfy Henry, not to satisfy her own yearnings, not for the world would she do it.

"You can't do anything," she said bitterly, forcing herself back to the argument at hand. "You can't do anything while I kill another baby except get your hopes up and I won't kill them, Henry. Not anymore."

"If we don't try, we'll be killing hope too," Henry had attempted to rationalise. "Between the two of us, we can … make it right. Just one more time, Clare, please, I'm begging you, just once more, then we can look at those other options. We can adopt. We can go to China if that's what you really want."

He didn't want it, Clare knew. He wanted his child to have a history, a baby from China came with a past that was known to no one but the mother and father that had made the painful choice to give her up. History, to Henry, wasn't what you made of it, it was something that was, something concrete, something that could – and should – be passed down. History wasn't a child with only a name and face. Henry would say it now, but when she bought the passports, he would find nine and half thousand reasons why they shouldn't do it.

Had it been just her, they would have gone years ago, after the death of the first baby. Had it been just her, there would have been no second chance, no painting the nursery blue, no picking out names.

"I don't want another dead baby," she said, breaking free of him, leaning on the mantle for support. "I want … something other than that. Please?" She was pleading, sobbing, knowing that if he loved her, he would agree. He would agree that dead babies were not the way to go, that a living baby from China was perfect; that this child could never make up for what they'd already lost, but there was something special about her too. They could love her just as much, she knew it. She just had to make Henry see it.

"I love you," Henry tried. "I love you and there is no way I can show that more than by making a child with you."

"No!" Clare cried. "There are other ways to love, Henry. We can love another mother's little girl just as much! We can give a child a chance!"

"You don't understand."

"You can't love a child that's not yours?"

"I CAN'T CREATE A CHILD THAT'S NOT MINE!" Henry bellowed, taking a step towards Clare, who shrank back in fright. He was angry, and he couldn't control it. "No, he gasped," as the world spun and he was no longer there.

He was in the past, he wasn't sure when, he didn't really recognise where he was, but there was a dumpster nearby and luckily for him, there were enough clothes inside for him to be considered at least semi-decent. He wandered barefoot through the streets, not looking for anything, not causing trouble. No matter what, he'd wait until he could go home. It happened sooner than later, he slipped and fell through nothingness, and landed in a house far emptier than he had left it.

Henry stood stunned in the living room, gripping the wall for support. There was no Clare. He fell to the ground, sobbing. They'd had so much promise, before, when he married her. Now, there was a world separating them; a world and walls upon walls of regret.

He packed his own things, made his way to Gomezes, and quietly laid out his sleeping bag, hoping that eventually, the hurt would go away. He could have chased her, but this was too huge, too big to go back on. In the long list of regrets that were his life, he wondered where that one would eventually fall.


End file.
